The Clean and Green Club

Within my parents’ lifetime, six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis for the crime of being Jewish–including some of my mother’s cousins. As a Jew of Eastern European ancestry, I cannot be silent while one set of people is singled out for removal of the privileges of full citizenship–because we’ve already seen where that road leads. I speak out against injustice, and I speak out in favor of full citizenship rights for all classes of people: black, white, brown, or yellow…gay, straight, bi, or transgender…rich, poor, or in between…Christian, Muslim, Jew, or other religion…And I believe fervently that all people’s rights must be vigorously defended, and that our freedoms stop when they transgress the rights of others.

–>If I did not take this stand, I would have no right to claim any authority on ethics.

And I believe that committed life partners should have access to the same rights that many of us take for granted: from coordinating care in a terminal illness to playing an active role as a parent. The back of the bus isn’t good enough. Separate-but-equal is not equal, as the Supreme Court ruled in 1954.

In this context, I salute the Equality Business Advisory Council, a business coalition that sprang up to oppose California’s reprehensible Proposition 8–the ballot initiative that took away the right of same-sex couples to legally marry. Unfortunately, the ballot initiative passed.

I do not understand the anti-gay-marriage movement. As a man married to the same woman for 25 years, I don’t see how the right of two people who love each other to make a legal commitment that allows them to be full partners in any way lessens the marriage I have with my wife. I can’t see taking away that right as anything other than discrimination. And I live in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage has been legal for several years. I haven’t noticed that the sky has fallen. I can see only positive changes from this law–changes that materially impact only the families involved, but whose impact is huge.

The Equality Business Advisory Council included such well-known companies and organizations as MTV, PG&E, Levi Strauss & Co., and Google. Even the usually conservative Clear Channel joined in.  Apple Computer gave $100,000 toward the effort and issued this strong statement:

Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.

Google’s public statement opposing Proposition 8 was written by none other than co-founder Sergey Brin:

Because our company has a great diversity of people and opinions — Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, all religions and no religion, straight and gay — we do not generally take a position on issues outside of our field, especially not social issues. So when Proposition 8 appeared on the California ballot, it was an unlikely question for Google to take an official company position on.

However, while there are many objections to this proposition — further government encroachment on personal lives, ambiguously written text — it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8. While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 — we should not eliminate anyone’s fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love.

In all, the coalition included well over 500 businesses, community organizations, Chambers of Commerce, and media outlets, including 68 newspapers who wrote editorials opposing passage.

My thanks to fellow ethics blogger Chris MacDonald for telling me about this coalition, and flagging the Apple and Google statements I cited.